


How To Deal With the Sun and Stars

by potter_on_pointe



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Baz being hot, Beaches, California, Chest Hair, Competition, Day At The Beach, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Infection, M/M, Nipple Piercings, Poor Life Choices, Post-Book 2: Wayward Son, Simon is a dumbass, Soup, nipple care, yeah boi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24204127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potter_on_pointe/pseuds/potter_on_pointe
Summary: On a beach day in California, Simon makes some interesting life choices, forcing Baz to take very good care of him for the rest of the summer. Domestic hurt/comfort plus good old-fashioned dumbassery and vampire boys being sexy and dramatic.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 22
Kudos: 68





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This will be a multi-chapter (probably like 3 or 4, we'll see). Subsequent chapters coming soon, hopefully! Thanks for reading and I hope you like it!

SIMON: 

It all started last summer in California. Before Penny had got the call that we needed to return to Watford. But the sun was warm, sand soft, and Baz perfect. (though really when is Baz anything but perfect?). A few days before we left, Penny, Agatha, Baz, and I headed to the beach.   
Somehow, despite the fact that I’d seen Baz shirtless hundreds of times before, today was different. He had recently discovered the glory of sunscreen, so he was looking less gray than before. Plus, his time in Vegas had been good for him. He looked less frail than he had in weeks (apparently being adequately nourished will do that to you). We settled down on a blanket, enjoying our rare moment not chased by a monster. Or worse, responsibility.   
The second he takes his shirt off I think I die. The contrast of the dark curls of his chest hair against his pale smooth skin is just… He’s too bloody perfect and I can’t tolerate it.   
I must be staring, because he looks over at me, maddeningly teasing. The look in his eyes implies that he knows precisely how much I want to touch him right now, but he most definitely won’t let me. Bloody hell, how is his chest hair even aristocratic?   
Not wanting to be outdone, though Merlin knows I’m nearly always outdone by Baz, I quickly pull off my shirt (eternally grateful for Penny’s weird droid spell) and grab his hand. I pull him down to the water and he lets out a yelp. Grinning back, satisfied, I splash the cool ocean water at him. Which only makes his hair darker and I absolutely melt.   
“Bloody hell!” Baz exclaims. “What was that?!”   
I responded by way of splashing him again. I should be sorry, but it’s too fun to see him flustered. Baz casts an “It’s Raining Men” and the next wave crashes down on my head.   
“No fair! You can’t use magic.” I call out. “There are no rules for this.” he retorts, and promptly shuts me up with a kiss. If that would always be the result of antagonizing him, I’d push him into the ocean every day of the week.   
Pushed up against his chest, I am even more aware of the absolute perfection of his body. I know I truly have nothing to be self-conscious about, but Baz is so perfect, so confident, that it’s hard not to compare. And to add to that, since I’ve lost my magic, my reliance on him just makes me feel so much less special.   
I’ve got to get away from him for a moment. Sometimes he says I’m the sun but he’s a constellation. So beautiful that you can’t stop looking, a reminder of the infiniteness of the universe, and you want to look forever, trying to find and understand every inch of him. But sometimes looking up at the sky makes your neck hurt and you’ve got to go away, so you can appreciate it so much more and better and longer when you come back.   
“I’ve got to use the bathroom.” I say, pulling away. Baz looks hurt so I add “it’s not you, I promise, just being around the water makes me need to piss.”   
I walk back up the beach towards Penny, quietly reading, and Agathan, sunbathing. After letting them know where I’m going, I grab my shirt, wallet, and phone, then head up the boardwalk to the public bathrooms we passed on the way in. As I walk to the bathroom I feel the sun on my face. It shouldn’t be this exciting, but coming from England, the constant American sunshine is still a pleasant surprise. The boardwalk is smooth and warm against my feet and even once I stop into the bathroom (I brought shoes, don’t be gross), I’m not quite ready to go back. 

BAZ:   
I miss Simon the second he leaves. That’s the thing about the sun. Yes, he can be overwhelming and an absolute twat, but he fills the room, or beach, with a glow that you can’t find anywhere else. But Bunce, in typical fashion, doesn’t give me enough time to miss him before she pulls me into a long discussion of potential ways of implementing the Las Vegas model, as she calls it, to England. A very lovely discussion that politely ignores the likelihood of Bunce’s mother murdering all of us in our sleep the second we set foot on English soil. I, for all my attempts at pining for Simon, can’t help but be into the discussion. I do think it’s far fetched, implementing a mass education project of that scale, but if anyone could do it, it’s Bunce. And I don’t doubt that it’d be massively useful, not only out of my self-interest. I’m so involved that when I glance at my watch, I’m shocked to see that 45 minutes have gone by since Simon left. The bathroom was only a few hundred meters down the boardwalk, there’s no possible reason Simon should be this long. Immediately, my alarm bells go off; of course we can’t even have a beach day without some bloody monster coming to fuck it all up. 

SIMON:   
I don’t think I’ve realized quite how long I’ve walked, when I suddenly feel a shift. I look up and I’ve left the bright touristy section of the boardwalk behind. When I check my phone, I see that I’ve been walking for nearly 20 minutes. I’m about to turn around and return when I see the shop I’m standing in front of. A wooden sign says “Pierless Tattoos and the Golden Sun Piercing Studio” in thick dark letters, with a yellow and orange sun painted behind it. I don’t know why it catches my eye the way it does. I believe in signs just enough to think it’s not a chance I stopped here. It doesn’t look particularly clean or nice, but damn it, I’m young and dumb and on a trip. Remembering the way Baz reacted when I cut my hair, I suddenly have an idea for something even better.   
As I walk into the shop, a small bell tinkles on the door and I enter a small space with sheets of drawings on the walls and a few black chairs. A woman is seated behind a desk, she looks a few years older than me, but not much.   
“Hi! What can we do for you today?” she asks.   
“How much for nipple piercings?” I reply, grinning. Baz won’t know what hit him.   
After I’ve paid and chosen jewelry (the cheapest, I can’t magic myself more money), I’m brought to a small back room. The woman has me lie back on a soft table, and then,“Bloody hell!”   
She laughs, saying “that’s just the clamp, are you ok?”  
I take a deep breath and nod. I close my eyes, then feel the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life on my left nipple. If I had to fight the Humdrum or do this again, I’d fight the fucking Humdrum. I think she’s saying something but my brain’s too fuzzy.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the chaotic upload schedule.

SIMON:   
When I come to, the first thing I see is the bright fluorescent lights on the otherwise black pipe-covered ceiling. The second thing is the piercer holding a red plastic cup of water. I take the cup from her tattooed fingers and take a sip.   
“How long was I out for?”   
“Only about 5 minutes,” she replies.   
Despite the relatively short time I’ve been out, I’m seized with panic at what Baz must be feeling right now. She explains the care instructions but I’m not even paying attention when I slip my shirt back on and am suddenly out on the boardwalk again. I notice the heat of the fake wood boards and the sun, but my only focus is getting back to Baz. How many times had we promised to tell each other where we were? Buddies are crucial to not getting eaten by monsters. He must be out of his mind right now.   
As I run down the boardwalk, even the heat of the rough planks beneath my feet isn’t enough to drag my single-minded focus off of Baz. I loosely clock a few buildings and dingy beach taco shacks as I run, but I feel like I’ve been running for hours despite not feeling any closer to our beach encampment. This is probably why Bunce is always on our backs to get a goddamn watch, but alas, that advice is useless to me now. 

BAZ:   
Where the FUCK is that infernal child? Truly a pity he’s so loveable (and by which I mean, loved by me), because good lord. Bunce and I set off down the boardwalk to try to find Simon since that idiotic bugger had to go and lose his magic and thus I, the ever loveable boyfriend, gets monster defense duty. We’ve hit the bathrooms, an infernally ugly structure made of the unholy combination of rotting wood and stucco, painted with some paint that used to be blue before a decade of sun exposure and the stench of urine.   
“Well,” says Bunce, “we have 2 courses of action. Assume that Simon has decided to be a dumbass, which isn’t out of character, and wait for him here, or, assume that he went literally anywhere else and try to find him.”  
The good boyfriend in me would search every grain of sand on the planet to find him, but the vampire in me is getting very weary of the sun. Yes, the discovery of mineral sunscreens helped, but the sun tires me out more than I’ve let on to either Bunce or Simon. My good English blood curdles at the amount of time I’ve spent exposed to the elements in this bloody country.   
“Might as well stay here, I ‘spose.” I respond, desperately trying to not make my exhaustion evident. Bunce waits on a bench (yes, we’re bloody brilliant at the Buddy system), whilst I hunt around the round bathrooms in search of water. I’ve only just bent over the small metal sink when I spot an unmistakable head of golden curls. His head of golden curls. The one he will be very lucky to get to keep after the stress of the past hour.   
My need for physical hydration forgotten, I run past the bathrooms onto the proper boardwalk, and nearly straight (heh) into Simon.   
“If you ever do that again,” I whisper through gritted teeth, “I will personally hunt you down and feed you to the Humdrum. No one gave you the right to worry me like that.”  
“I killed the Humdrum,” he said with a laugh, “Remember?”   
And Simon’s laugh is infectious and all I can do is lean down to him and wrap my fingers in his hair. I pull his face to look up at me and kiss him. His lips are soft from the sun and his skin has the roughness of the ocean spray on it.   
I could’ve sworn he winced a tiny bit when I pulled him in, but I’m so relieved to have him back that I push it out to a figment of my imagination. 

SIMON:   
I was so panicked trying to get back to the beach that I wasn’t even paying attention to my surroundings. Panic combined with heat and recent nipple piercings does not for good navigation make. While hurrying down the boardwalk, a man suddenly rams into me. I’m about to be furious then I look up and it’s Baz.   
A wave of relaxation and joy runs through my body. He hisses a threat in my ear but I’m so excited to finally see him that I just laugh. Then he pulls my head back and all I can see is the endless blue sky and Baz.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter dedicated to:   
> \- sunsets  
> \- my incredible hate for sand   
> \- writing the chapter notes to procrastinate writing the chapter   
> \- the importance of always washing your face (thank you skincarebyHyram) 
> 
> CW: embarrassment, mild gore related to not taking care of injuries, slightly more profanity than previous chapters

SIMON:   
I could explain the rest of the day, but in all honesty it wasn’t horribly eventful. After my, uh, escapade (or as Baz put it “you absolute bloody numpty how fucking dare you terrify me in this way) we just sat on the beach. Just me and Baz and an endless blue sky and equally endless and blue ocean. (yes Bunce and Agatha were technically there too)(this feels irrelevant). 

We went in the water and splashed each other, then kissed with the taste of salt on our lips and sand on our hands. Bunce read to us while we sat on the beach, my shirt clinging to my body like a goddamn magnet. The sun passed and the sky bled, but I could’ve laid on Baz’s lap watching the last feathers of sunlight pass through the sky forever. 

Once the cool of the water moves its ghoulish body over the sand, Bunce quietly suggests we leave. When I get up I spill sand all over Baz’s swimsuit. The beach is Baz’s only exception to his ordinarily perfect aesthetic. Apparently the need for floral print suits is not superseded by the need to not burn to a crisp, and thus, Baz is wearing a swim shirt. The proud fucker attempted to do a beach day without it, but halfway through noticed he was slowly turning gray and here we are. Does he make it look fucking elegant as Cinderella’s ballgown? Of course. Some things in this life are truly unfair. 

Baz stands and attempts to shake the sand off like a dog. Of course, in doing so, he absolutely cakes me in sand. I grab the folded beach towel in one hand and Baz in the other, then head off on the now damp and cool sand towards the boardwalk of long forgotten panic. 

BAZ:   
Simon has a bloody heavy head. The years of “Chosen One” bullshit have inflated his head to weigh, conservatively estimating, 20 stone. Do I mind? Abso-bloody-lutely not. At least the fucking wings are spelled down. Simon tried to be little spoon once, without Bunce’s spell. It, to say the least, did not go particularly well. 

But regardless, it was a particularly lovely night. There was something incredibly hedonistic wrapped up in the beach towels that night. To see the moon streaked with the pinks left behind by Apollo then look down at your love’s freckled cheeks. The horizon is what is impossible to reach and Simon is what is always there and always mine. And if he’s mine, then fuck the horizon. I look at the stars and revel in the glory that has brought us to the here and now. 

We could’ve stayed there forever, young and gay and basked in moonlight, but the winds cooled the beach. So I pulled Simon’s fucking heavy head off my lap. 

“Wha?” 

“You absolute bloody numpty. Have you legitimately been sleeping this whole while?”

“No,” he says, his point countered by the sleep dust in his eyes and the half-awake slur of that very response. 

“Fucking liar. Get up, we’re going back to Agatha’s.” 

Simon grabs the smallest towel (don’t think I didn’t notice) and wraps his hand around mine. Fingers intertwined, we walk away from the pink-streaked sea. 

When we get to Agatha’s car, Bunce calls shotgun, but I couldn’t care less when that means I get Simon’s car cuddles all the way home. The drive passes with little attention paid to the night creeping in on us. Soon enough, Agatha pulls the car into her palm-tree flanked driveway and I gently nudge Simon’s sleepy ass to get him out of the car. As soon as we enter, Simon barely pauses to take off his dirty shorts (oh lord if his ass ever grows less majestic, simply take me then) before collapsing on the bed. 

Being the certified dignified member of this relationship, I wait for Bunce to get out of the shower, then go to wash my face. (for future reference: Bunce fogs the shit out of the mirror.)( also will leave toiletries behind Agatha’s massive potted plants. no I was most certainly not planning on using that thank you.)(I want to moisturize not become a fucking botanist). 

Face clean, I collapse on the bed, and quickly fall asleep, with Simon’s heat enough to keep me warm. 

SIMON:   
I wake up with an ache on my chest. Rolling over to see the clock (manual, for the record). Given the ungodly hour of 6 am, I am unclear if I have woken with an ache, or the ache has woken me. 

One thought passes through my head: oh fucking shit. 

Fuck. 

Shit. 

Slowly, I pull my hands out from under Agatha’s crocheted throw, and feel my chest. The seawater stiffened cotton is damp. And mushy?   
Whatever the fuck I just felt makes any semblance of grogginess fade away. I roll off Agatha's low mattress and rush across the small apartment to the bathroom. 

When I cross into the bathroom, I get smacked across the face by Agatha’s overly large potted plant. (I suppose that’s one way to wake up). Glimpsing my reflection in the mirror, I immediately understand why my shirt was wet. A patch of liquid stained the lightly sunbleached shirt directly over my nipple. 

Oh no. I cannot let Baz know about this. I creep back into the bedroom and grab my phone, trying desprately not to wake him. Googling the issues, I’m told I should “reach out to my piercer with any concerns.” Right. Would’ve been bloody helpful to remember the name of the fucking shop. The next article does yield something good. Remove the piercing and use saline water. 

Saline. Salt and water. That I could do. 

I try to grab the small metal bar on the end of the barbell, but immidiately wince. This situation may be worse than I thought. And I have a high bar for pain. Gritting my teeth, I attempt to grasp the ball again, but the surrounding area is too swollen. I yelp, then immidiately regret it. Bloody hell.   
But the stupid bar needs to come out. Take three here we go when I hear a knock on the door. 

“Yes?” 

“Simon, honey?” It’s Baz. I must’ve woken him. Shit. “Are you alright?” 

I’m racing through a quick pros and cons list of my need for help vs the preservation of my dignity when the bastard opens the door anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter brought to you by:  
> \- The soup of tag fame finally showing up.  
> \- me never understanding how to work other people's showers   
> \- my very chaotic upload schedule   
> \- me forgetting that most people stand for showers (chronic pain and fatigue life).   
> Enjoy!

BAZ:   
Grasping the “artistic” crystal doorknob, I open the light wooden door to the bathroom. Simon is, well, fully a mess. He’s seated on the floor, but his position tells me he didn’t start there or wind up there on purpose. Simon’s face is red, forehead plastered with stray sweaty curls.   
But when I look down from his flushed face, the situation only worsens. His still sandy T-shirt is on the floor next to him, covered with some unknown liquid. The source of the liquid is confirmed when I see his chest. The entirety of the left side of his chest looks red and inflamed, centering on his  
“Goodness, Simon” I exclaim, “is that a nipple piercing?!”   
The sheepish look on his face tells me all I need to know about that. But I simply cannot have this level of embarrassment.  
“Simon, you know nothing I’m seeing now I haven’t seen of you already, right?”   
(I have, in fact, seen more of him than that, but this is not the time or place for that.)(Also I technically have not seen him with an infected nipple before, but again, not the time or place.)   
I kneel next to him and he leans his head onto my shoulder. Though there are more pressing medical needs at the moment, I let him take the moment of intimacy, Merlin knows he needs it right now. A few minutes pass in silence, where we can just revel in our company, but Simon quickly began to explain to me what had happened, his story a waterfall of information I didn’t necessarily need or want to know.   
After Simon explained to me the necessity of removing the offending bar (which, no shit, I could’ve told you that), I volunteer as tribute to assist. (Yes, give me the boyfriend of the year award, thank you). Simon sits up against the toilet, to brace himself for the pain, and passes me Agatha’s tweezers. Sitting across from him, I began to attempt to twist off the ball on the end of the jewelry. The position would’ve been romantic, if not for, well…   
“Bloody, hell, mate!” Simon winces. I pay no heed, because the stupid thing needs to come off somehow, and well, if my idiotic golden retriver of a boyfriend hadn’t gotten this into his head in the first place, we wouldn’t be having an issue. It turns out it’s far easier to remove the ball with a second person, and I can then slowly remove the barbell. 

SIMON:   
Baz is oddly good at this? I don’t know why I don’t expect him to be so authoritative, but he really can be when he wants. We spent so many years antagonizing each other, that it seems strange to listen to him, even after the time we’ve spent dating. And defeating the Humdrum.   
Yes, this is what I think about whilst my boyfriend sits on my lap, pulling jewelry out of my infected piercing. Makes total sense. I’ve got to distract myself from how much it hurts somehow- and if my distraction is admiring how attractive authority makes my boyfriend, so be it.   
“It’s out,” Baz says, pulling me out of my stupor. “The jewelry is so cheap I can feel it coming apart in my hands, so I’m throwing it away. You will go shower. I’m going to prep saline for you”   
I’m so flustered by his sudden authority that I just nod. As soon as he leaves the bathroom, I disrobe and step onto the cool tile floor of Agatha’s shower. I turn on the water and  
“Fuck!” I, uh, may have forgotten that Baz was the last person to shower. And that Baz takes freezing cold showers “For my hair, Simon. We can’t all be as effortlessly beautiful as you.” I jump back out of the shower onto the soft fluffy moss green bath mat, then move to adjust the heat. Agatha taught me how the first night we were here, but I still haven’t figured out how to work her blasted American shower. (In all fairness, I never understand how to work anyone’s showers that aren’t my own.)(The shower design people must have a conspiracy to make their bloody contraptions as fucking difficult to use as possible.)   
After accidentally making the water colder, turning the shower off, and scalding my already sun-burnt hand, I manage to make the water a humanly bearable temperature. The bathroom fills with steam, likely to the delight of Agatha’s overgrown plants and I (finally) step under the stream of water. The hot water is a delightful surprise to my memories of the frigid salt water from yesterday, and as I stand under the hot water I can feel the caked on salt dissolve off my body.   
I grab the soap to wash myself, and wince because I’ve somehow already forgotten that I have a stab wound on my chest. The last of the salt and sand washes away and I turn off the water. (To the sand that somehow wound up inside my arse- fuck you.)   
Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I look significantly better than the salt-crusted sweat-goblin that emerged from my bed this morning. My face is pink, but more from the surrounding heat than embarrassment, which I’ll take as a good thing, and my hair is still slightly plastered to my forehead, but in the way that makes it look clean, not like I just had night sweats. 

BAZ:   
While Simon cleans himself up, I set to prepping breakfast. Though I only said I’d make him a saline solution, I know my boyfriend. Specifically, that he can be a bit of a dramatic numpty when injured in any way shape or form. So I set up two pots- one to boil water for a saline solution and one to prepare khichdi.   
Once, I showed up at Bunce’s place, soaked to the bone, and Penelope’s mum made me the turmeric lentil dish. I was obsessed, and had Bunce’s mum teach me how to make it.  
I carefully pour the lentils and cover the pot to let it cook. Whilst that cooks, I pour what I’d call approximately a shit ton of salt into the pot to prepare the saline. The salt quickly dissolves in the hot water, with the aid of me stirring, so I grab a clean mason jar from the cupboard and pour the saline in, then screw on the lid and mark it with “Simon’s Saline” and the date.   
When all that’s through, I peek at the lentils, and they’re nearly cooked, so I wipe my hands on the linen apron I found in Agatha’s closet. Looking at the spices I’ve gathered, I prepare the chhonk that will go in the khichdi. As the spicy chopped dried peppers and spices simmer in the melted butter, the small apartment fills with the smell of pepper and turmeric, drawing both Simon and Bunce out of their respective holes.   
“Are you making my mum’s food?” Bunce asks.   
“Yeah, for Simon.” My response seems to bring up too many questions behind her eyes, so she just dismisses them all.   
“I also have your thing, Simon,” I say, deliberately vague for the sake of his dignity, though subtlety is oft lost on him, “but I can help you with it later.” (as if I trust him to do it himself)   
I turn around to check the khichdi, then ask Bunce to grab some bowls to serve. We are unfortunately lacking in rice, but that’s on a time constraint and also Agatha’s lack of a rice cooker.   
We eat, it’s amazing, then I go back with Simon to treat his “stab wound” as he’s taken to calling it. Like he didn’t have it done on purpose. The rest of the day passes in uneventful peace, with me cleaning Simon’s ex-piercing every few hours, making him potato leek soup, and cuddles every minute in between. Simon’s the little spoon, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Thanks for reading! We have 1 more chapter left, which will hopefully be posted before September starts, depending on how much I procrastinate writing my college essays.   
> A note on the food in this chapter: Khichdi is really good and excellent comfort food. I, however, am not of Indian descent, so if I made a mistake in describing how it's made, please let me know. If you want to make it (you should, it's great)- I use Priya Krishna's recipe in her cookbook, but there are tons online.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter brought to you by me really liking soup. And also being very hungry now. 
> 
> A Disclaimer (that probably should've been said a few chapters ago): I am not a body piercer, nor do I have any experience in caring for infected nipples. The events in this chapter are based on my very cursory research and if you need actual advice please stop reading fanfic and talk to a professional. Then come back and finish it :)
> 
> And a note: There are a few canonical inconsistencies in this here fic. Some of them were done on purpose, some of them were done by accident because I haven't re-read Wayward Son in a while.

SIMON:   
A few days pass from the nipple apocalypse, mostly full of Baz playing nursemaid. I’m sure he thinks I demand it of him because I’m overdramatic, and well, he’s not wrong, but I also know how happy power makes him.   
If we could pass the rest of our days in this domestic bliss, it would be enough. But Baz has to study Economics for some bloody reason, so making me soup isn’t always his first priority.   
The Thursday after our weekend at the beach, my nipple is nearly healed, thanks to Baz’s excellent care, and I wake up delightfully late to an empty apartment. Once I’ve finished the cursory amount of rolling around in bed, I wander into the kitchen. I find a note, written on the back of a Whole Foods receipt. Bunce and Agatha have gone out for breakfast, since they wanted to leave the place empty for me and Baz. Baz, per the note, has “gone out to get you a surprise.”   
Well, surprises are always fun, at least. If Baz wants to surprise me with… something, the least I can do is somewhat return the favor. I make up the bed, though if his surprise is good enough, we may very well end up disheveling it later. After I put a few stray clothing items in the hamper (mostly mine. Baz’s worn clothes go straight into the hamper or get folded immaculately and put back onto the shelves), I go shower.   
I’m literally stepping out of the shower when I hear the door open. Assuming it’s Baz, I just bother to haphazardly wrap a towel around my waist and lightly ruffle my hair so my curls sit right, before near-running out of the bathroom to meet him.   
“You look like a demon.” He says. Fuck. Since Bunce was out, she couldn’t spell away my wings. Every time she spells them down, the spell holds a little longer, but they must’ve come back this morning and I wasn’t paying attention.   
“An attractive one, though?” I retort.   
“A very much attractive one. If all the demons were to look like you, there wouldn’t be a single person aiming for heaven.”   
“Lucky for heaven, I’m just yours.”   
“Lucky for me, chosen one.” The tension is palpable right now, but I can smell doughnuts from the bakery a few blocks away.   
“Uh, what’d you get?” I say, and the moment is broken. Baz responds by opening the box and handing me a cinnamon powdered doughnut. I take a bite and close my eyes, caught in the bliss of powdered sugar and cinnamon. Why are these doughnuts so much better than literally any other doughnut on the planet? And why are they even more delicious when my boyfriend wakes up early to get them for me?   
Baz is laughing at me. Git. I reach out to cup his cheek with my powdered sugar dusted fingers, and he immediately flushes red. It doesn’t quite have the intended effect of shutting him up though. But I realize, I think I can live with him laughing at me like this. We finish the doughnuts in laughter, then head back to our (read: Agatha’s, co-opted by me and Baz, by virtue of relationship privileges) bedroom.   
I’ve been so distracted by Baz’s doughnuts that I completely forgot that I’m still wearing just my towel. Baz lies on the bed, somehow elegant even in a pair of deep purple shorts and my old grey Watford hoodie. That Baz can make a hoodie look elegant isn’t as much surprising because it’s a hoodie (the man can make a rashguard sexy, hoodies are child's play), but because it is so uncharacteristically Baz to leave the house in one.   
I face away from him before dropping my towel, though that privacy is somewhat pointless, as if he hasn’t already seen every inch of my body, and pull on a pair of soft, dark grey joggers.   
Baz is scrolling through our Netflix, looking for a new romcom for us to watch, with the cookbook “Twelve Months of Monastery Soups” open on his lap. We picked up the cookbook in a dingy used bookshop yesterday, when my, erm, incapacitation, led Baz to discover that he really loves making soup. Though I’m sure it’s author would be horrified to have his soups made by homosexual vampires. The spite makes the soup better.   
I curl up next to him, my head resting on his shoulder and my legs pulled under me. Almost unconsciously, his arm wraps around me, brushing his fingers along the vertebrae of my neck and up through the still-short but slowly growing out into curls hair at the base of my head. No matter how much I sit in his arms, I still count my stars every day that I got Baz as my star. The only time I can let down my guard is when I’m in his arms.   
Baz starts the film, some Netflix original romcom about a chef and her high school boyfriend, and I let myself melt into him more. As I lean my head against his chest, I hear the faintest of grunts.   
“You ok?” I ask. Baz is weirdly flustered. It’s strange for him to be flustered in an awkward, embarrassed way.   
“Well, the doughnuts weren’t my only surprise to you,” he says mysteriously. He was out for a weirdly long time just to run out to the corner coffee shop this morning.   
“I can show you, but you need to get up,” he says and I oblige. My bare back is suddenly cool without the presence of his body. He pulls off his sweatshirt, revealing a loose fishnet crop top underneath.   
Yeah, that’s more what I’d expect my ever-fashionable boyfriend to wear. He invites me back into his arms, when I glimpse something.   
“Tyrannus Basilton Pitch the Third.”   
“Present and accounted for.”   
“Do you honestly mean to tell me you got a nipple piercing?”  
“No,” he says, “I got two nipple piercings. Some of us aren’t wimps like you. Some of us are also capable of following correct aftercare instructions, so don’t touch it.”   
I sheepishly pull my hand away. Any semblance of physical inferiority I felt on that day on the beach faded away, and I let myself be overwhelmed by how beautiful my boyfriend is. And that my beautiful boyfriend chose me. Because we match: the sun and the stars. One isn’t more perfect or beautiful or necessary than the other. It’s all too much for me and the only thing I can do is crawl onto his lap and kiss him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made it!! This was my first fanfic ever, and also my first piece of creative writing that I finished. I'm aware it's probably too short for the amount of time it took me to write, but I have a few other fics planned, including (hopefully!) a longfic and a lot of things to procrastinate so... Anyway, thank you so much for reading, giving kudos, and commenting, it means a lot. 
> 
> PS: Yes, "Twelve Months of Monastery Soups" is a real cookbook. I saw it at a used bookstore, but I do not own it and thus I cannot confirm if it's good. I invite you to find out, if you're curious.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Kudos/comments always welcome! This is my first fic so constructive feedback and compliments are welcome, but please be nice!


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